Startups

Tech startup news that breaks down the funding, growth, and long-term trajectory of companies across every stage and industry. Startup coverage includes climate, crypto, fintech, SaaS, transportation, and consumer tech.
Startups

Lensrentals acquires BorrowLenses

Lensrentals, a titan in the online rental service for photo, video, audio and lighting equipment, has announced its acquisition of BorrowLenses, a key competitor in the space of photographic and vi...
A man takes a photo with a SLR camera
Startups

Is there anything AI can’t do?

The current-generation AI technology is the tech equivalent of a toddler, and all the mediocre reviews various GenAI software is getting is tantamount to judging a fish by its ability to climb a tr...
ChatGPT
A composite image of major Asian cities in a rainbow gradient

Don’t ignore Asia tech

A lot can change in 12 years. When I joined TechCrunch in 2012, I was the only writer it had base...
AI

FlowGPT is the Wild West of GenAI apps

A few months ago, OpenAI launched the GPT Store, a marketplace where people can create and list AI-powered chatbots customized to perform a number of tasks (e.g., coding, answering trivia questions...
FlowGPT
Startups

A bumpy road for EV manufacturers

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Rivian launched with a promise to revoluti...
Rivian R1S on highway
AI

Dili wants to automate due diligence with AI

Stephanie Song, formerly on the corporate development and ventures team at Coinbase, was often frustrated by the volume of due diligence tasks she and her team had to complete on a daily basis. ...
Venture

Homebrew targets $50M for new fund

Venture capital firm Homebrew is targeting $50 million for a new fund, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing comes as a bit of a surprise considerin...
piles of cash
AI

Safety by design

Tech’s ability to reinvent the wheel can mean ignoring truths that others have learned. But new founders are sometimes figuring it out for themselves faster than predecessors.
Concept of risk and hazards associated with uncovered electrical outlets with a sharp metal object that could be inserted and cause a shock.
Startups

Maybe count to 10 before you tweet

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Garry Tan heads up Y Combinator, the most ...
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AI

Can AI do ugly?

Some thoughts on AI aesthetics, the challenge of uninsurability, and how to pitch a biotech startup to non-experts.
Ugly Belgian Houses
Startups

A new dawn for maker tech startups

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. The startup train just keeps on rumblin’ d...
interior of Coast Runner's casing
Startups

The unicorns among us

The pendulum swung hard in the direction of B2B startups over the last decade — but the thing with pendulums is that eventually they swing back.
Apps

What happened to Artifact?

Last week, Artifact, a buzzy news app from Instagram’s co-founders, announced it was shutting down after failing to gain critical mass. The news came as a surprise, as the app was generally w...
Artifact displayed on smartphone laid on colored tiles/blocks
Robotics

Dextrous Robotics closes up shop

Memphis-based Dextrous Robotics is calling it a day. The news, noted by the Robot Report, was confirmed by the warehouse robotics firm’s CEO, Evan Drumwright, on LinkedIn. The executive spells out ...
Dextrous Robotics
Startups

What happens to Carta now?

If a noticeable chunk of Carta startup and venture customers do leave, it would hurt the company’s otherwise impressive revenue figures, but that seems unlikely to happen.
Startups

Investment in India is in free fall

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. You shouldn’t compare apples to oranges, but similarly, comparing iPhones to Androids is a fool’s errand as well...
An illustration of email icons floating around in blue and green.
Startups

Do you believe in job after job?

People moving on to new jobs is not a bad thing — and not only when they have been laid off. That’s why it’s uplifting to see employers encourage this process.
Startups

Startups must master operations

Josh Claman Contributor Share on X Josh Claman is the CEO of Accelsius, makers of direct-to-chip, two-phase cooling technology. An advocate for the power of transformative technology throughout his...
Illustration of workers assembling cog wheels into a workflow.
Fintech

Fintechs go shopping

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. If you want to receive The Interchange directly in your inbox every Sunday, head here to sign...
dollars in a shopping cart
AI

Catching up on OpenAI’s wild weekend

Welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups. This past weekend was all about the massive shakeup at OpenAI and the high-impact machinations the last few days brought.
Equity podcast logo
Startups

Time for moderation?

Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen made it clear that while he was keen on buying Convoy because of the “incredible tech stack” it built, he wasn’t buying its strategy.
"In an aerial view, A truck moves along a freeway on March 31, 2023 in Oakland, California."
Startups

TC+ Roundup: Just say no to triaging

Good morning! All signs are pointing to a recovery in 2024, and that’ll be better for some than others. The past few years have seen investors propping up mediocre portfolio companies, hoping...
Bull making shadow of bear on wall
AI

Ida uses AI to prevent grocery food waste

Ida is a relatively new French startup that wants to work with supermarkets and grocery stores to optimize new orders of fresh products, such as fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry and fish. The star...
People buying vegetables while standing in supermarket
Startups

How to bootstrap an AI startup

Michael Koch Contributor Share on X Michael Koch is the co-founder and CEO of HubKonnect, an AI-enabled local store marketing platform. When you take venture capital money, investors will shape eve...
Pointer of map on matrix background with digits 1 and 0
AI

Can AI lift our spirits?

The last quarter in venture capital was quite gloomy. Even AI didn’t change the picture that much, but its impact is starting to show in other ways. 
Apps

Stack Overflow cuts 28% of its staff

Developer community site Stack Overflow has laid off 28% of its staff, the Prosus-owned company announced Monday. In a blog post, Stack Overflow’s CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar indicated that t...
Stack Overflow
Startups

Founders, are events useful?

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. A few months ago, Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, tweeted that if he could go back in time and do one thing ...
A startup event in San Francisco in 2019
Startups

Why Medium is opting out of AI

Medium has gone through a number of versions over the years, but what has been a steady focus in Medium’s life in recent years has been its subscription business.
Medium Mastodon logo
Apps

Virgio’s fast-fashion dream is over

Fast-fashion startup Virgio, founded by former Myntra chief Amar Nagaram, is contemplating shutting down its operations less than a year after raising funds at a valuation of over $160 million, acc...
Virgio app on phone screen
Startups

When scaring us is great for business

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. All right, all right, all right. Over the past few days, I’ve been listening to Matthew McConaughey’s memoir Greenligh...
A couple scared to death by all the info coming to them from their devices
Startups

Making the world a better place?

Managing returns efficiently is a necessity for online sellers; to keep their customers happy to retain them, but also because reducing their environmental impact becomes no longer optional.
Plastic containers repurposed as vases
Startups

A change at TechCrunch

Hi all! Connie Loizos here with a brief bulletin: I’m the new General Manager and Editor-in-Chief of TechCrunch. [Puffs on cigar.] I know, you’re busy – I get it – so I want to take jus...
Startups

Byju’s is restructuring businesses

Three senior executives are leaving Byju’s as part of a restructuring at the edtech group, the Indian startup said Tuesday. Mukut Deepak, who led the classes 4-10 business; Himanshu Bajaj, he...
Byju's logo displayed on a smartphone laying on a table covered in school supplies
Startups

Yes, in my backyard

Can startups help solve the U.S. housing crisis? BuildCasa thinks so. It raised a $3.5 million round of pre-seed funding to let California homeowners build new homes in their backyards.
BuildCasa rendering - Backyard house
Startups

AI is going 4-dimensional

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday morning. State-sponsored bad actors have long been able to make “deepfake” videos that are good enough to t...
GettyImages 823303786
Startups

Startups, be careful who you sell to

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. As a photographer, the saga of Amazon buying Digital Photo Review (DPReview among friends) before slowly grinding it i...
Illustration of a phone with a pen
Startups

Is ChatGPT the iBeer of LLM’s?

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show where we niche down to a single t...
Equity podcast logo
AI

Voice cloning platform Resemble AI lands $8M

Resemble AI, a platform that uses generative AI to clone realistic-sounding voices, today announced that it raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Javelin Venture Partners, with participation...
Image of a girl shouting against a brick wall painted pink with multicolored squiggles on the wall to represent her voice.
Fintech

People like Threads

Hello and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the we...
Equity podcast logo
Startups

When AI bots pose as humans

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday afternoon. This week, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the implications of artificial intelligence. One of the m...
AI

Can AI make older adults feel less lonely?

In the era of quick judgments, it’s tempting to think we are more clever than anyone else. But from AI to Apple to senior tech, underestimating others comes at a risk: being seriously wrong.
Intuition Robotics' AI companion ElliQ
Social

Revenge of the mutual funds

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Our Monday ...
Equity podcast logo
AI

Is AI ever too much AI?

Exploring how one VC is feeling about a big chunk of her portfolio pivot into AI, and some updates on internal developer portals.
Startups

When will the paper unicorns fold?

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single...
Equity podcast logo
Startups

TechCrunch Live events, but a podcast

TechCrunch Live had some amazing shows over the last few months. I know it’s hard to keep up. Every Wednesday, at 12:00 pm PDT, the live event features top founders and investors talking thro...
TechCrunch Live event logo
Startups

A pivot, in this market‽

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior reporter Natasha Mascarenhas.  Startups Weekly readers know I love a pivot story, and now I have one of m...
Natasha Mascarenhas recording the TechCrunch Equity Podcast at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on October 18, 2022. Image Credit: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch
Startups

All hail the Unicorn Kingdom?

The impact of technology is going to be so big that both France and the U.K. are right to bet on it, just like Israel did by putting itself on the map as the “Startup Nation.”
A map of the UK made up of inter-connected dots on a golden and blue background.
Startups

Hey look, OpenAI is even richer now

Hello and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the we...
Equity podcast logo
Startups

Pitch for the check you want 

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. Tech’s guidin...
Teacher preparing pencils for school day; aligning product team with product vision
Startups

Unpacking the Twitter blues

Hello and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the we...
Equity podcast logo
Security

Read the room

Let’s look into cybersecurity sales, developer content marketing, and fundraising pitches through a common lens: The importance of understanding your audience and putting it first.
People figures with comment clouds above their heads. Commenting on feedback, participation in discussion. Brainstorming, fresh new ideas. Communication in civil society. Cooperation and Collaboration (People figures with comment clouds above their he
Startups

Early Stage 2023: IRL is B-A-C-K

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week we recorded at Early Stage, TechCrunch’s ev...
Equity podcast logo